Friday, November 15, 2013

My author page is available here. Still waiting for the first customer review. And don’t forget to join “The #INHTIY Book Tour” by posting a picture with the book on Facebook or Twitter. I’m also working on a couple possible book signing events for after the holidays; if there are other local organizations out there that might be interested, please get in touch.

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

“At times you say things I do not want to hear but need to. Other times you say things I wish I could say but I need to keep my job.” -Special Education teacher.

“I read your book last night, all in one sitting. I could not put it down. And I am passing it on to my daughter and others now. Congrats on a great collection of essays. I hope lots and lots of people all over the country/world get to read it!” -Lisa.

“I just finished your book. It is awesome. . . . Thanks for a great read. [My brother, Pat] is my hero not because he’s in a wheelchair, but because he had/has the [guts] to follow his dream and challenge his limitations, which . . . are severe. Your book hit home in that Pat has faced the same issues as the ‘cute crippled kid.’”-Dan.

“So many wonderful words of wisdom that anyone can take away from reading it! My daughter is reading it now, and my son will be next. I think that your essays show the value of pushing yourself to the limit, even when you may not want to, the need to observe the small lessons in life now because later they may become bigger ones, but most of all to be the best person you can be, not letting your circumstances define who you are, but overcoming them. These are all lessons we have been trying to teach our children. Your words, eloquently written, will have an impact on them.” -Machelle, via private message on Facebook. (Used with her permission.)

“[The book is] tough, aggressive, defiant, even belligerent. It is not the usual, predictable stuff at all; the title alone tells you that.”-Maxwell King, former editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer.

“If you’re disabled, it’s the sort of book to buy, read, and pass along to the important people in your life. One caution: ask for [its] return; it’s the sort of book worth keeping as a reference.”-Gary Presley, National Book Critics Circle member.

Friday, November 1, 2013

a partial coincidence (also my first week of doing the bike MWF in a while and I’ve been stretching more consistently lately), but I’m sure it helped. One of the messages in my book is meant to encourage young people with disabilities to stick to their physical therapy. It really does help.

Friday, October 25, 2013

It was a busy morning of working to promote the book. I enjoyed answering some great questions from freelance writer Zachary Fenell, who has written for The Mobility Resource and worked with Handicap This! Productions. Hopefully, we’ll get some mutual benefits from his article / review of the book being published soon. I also got an e-mail from the Rocky Run YMCA offering to hold a book signing. This is the second offer I've had for a book signing event. It gets a little complicated with the book being self-published, but hopefully we can work something out in the near future.

Finally, we had another stop on “The #INHTIY Book Tour” thanks to Tom Gibson posting the below picture of us this week at Tommy’s Pizza on West Chester Pike. Tom wrote, “Not often you see me post on Facebook but it is a must that I share this. I am lucky to have a great friend named Robby Quinn that recently wrote a book. It’s about his journey through life with cerebral palsy. . . . I am so proud of him and so lucky to have him as a friend. Well done Rob!!” Apparently, I will never out grow childhood friends calling me Robby, but Tom is a great guy and I certainly appreciate the post!

Remember, join the tour by posting a picture with the book in a favorite or famous spot and tag me on Facebook or Twitter. My thanks to Tom!

Monday, October 14, 2013

“The #INHTIY Book Tour” has made it Denver, Colorado! Many thanks to Machelle Ashby Miller﻿ and her family! Machelle offered some kind words in a private message, but I think that I can share that she was giving the book to her kids to read—learning someone has shared a book with another person, I think, is as good of a compliment as a writer can get. Join the tour by tagging me on Facebook or Twitter in a picture of your own with the book in a famous and/or favorite place.

Thursday, October 3, 2013

After weeks of hype, I looked forward
to seeing two characters with disabilities in prime time this fall in Ironside and The Michael J. Fox Show. After seeing each pilot episode, I thought
the drama far outdid the comedy. It wasn’t that the police show dazzled, but
the situation comedy came up small.

Ironside’s
premier was pretty good despite some questionable accessibility issues. The main character, whose name gives
the show its title, seems to have a lot of people to do the leg work—no pun
intended, I swear—for him, and I’m not sure how well that will play out. He
seemed to get around the city a little too easily, and the one scene where he
saw a gun under a sofa cushion because of his eye level being in a wheelchair was
totally overplayed. Overall though, the character seemed very strong and the
focus on the typical crime drama story, which carries every TV lineup these
days, will hopefully keep the show on the air long enough for the character to
develop. It was also good to see the character involved with a woman without
any doubt that they are having sex.

Maybe my expectations for the Fox show were too high, but
it had a weak start. Bottom line, the comedy just wasn’t funny. I kind of
excused the pilot because there was a need to introduce the character and his
Parkinson’s disease. There were some fairly predictable cracks about the
disability, but nothing that deserved more than a guffaw.

NBC ran two episodes of the show on its first night, and
the second one was where disappointment started to settle in. Not only wasn’t
it offering any real laughs, the premise was downright awkward. The Fox
character, whose married with two children, became infatuated with the new
upstairs neighbor. It may sound hypocritical after what I said about Ironside,
but the awkwardness had nothing to do with the disability. The adulation
eventually played out right in front of his wife. I’m never big on the word dude. In fact, I only know one person
who can use it and not sound like an idiot. But it was the ultimate dude moment—as in, “Dude, you’re wife is right there. What the hell are ya doing?”

I really do hope Fox
bounces back with a strong episode this week. We need good, realistic
characters with disabilities in prime time. It’s a little disappointing to me
that both characters became disabled later in life as opposed to being born
with a disability. I think the two experiences have some major differences, and
I hope to see the latter eventually appear on television. It’s not that I have
any problem with the former, and those stories certainly need to be told as
well.

But I’m glad to see these two characters on the air and
hope they last awhile. My guess is Ironside
has a better chance of making that happen based on what I’ve seen so far on.

Friday, September 27, 2013

The tweet
above (in the headline) generated a few comments on Facebook that actually
helped me express the thought a little better than 140 characters allowed. One
person said that she was “sorry” people were so ignorant but that the woman “probably
meant well.” Another commenter shared his own story while suggesting that you
just have to take such comments “with a grain of salt.” I felt a need to
elaborate. So I did:

It’s no big deal any more. It happens frequently, though not quite
with as much gusto as this woman offered, nor the proximity. I was adjusting a
machine, and when I looked up she’s literally leaning down screaming at me. But
with the book out, I couldn’t
resist the tweet/post. I was tempted to say, “There’s this new book out I want
you to read.” My thing is, what exactly do these people think we should say in
response? I mean, seriously, they’ve essentially made a point to walk over,
stick their foot in their mouth, and make it abundantly clear that while they
feel compelled to connect in some small way with the disabled person, they are
at a complete loss as to just how to do that. Somehow, “Hey, how ya doing?”
never crosses their minds.

One of my hopes all along has been that the book itself
will generate conversation or communication much like yesterday’s interaction
on Facebook. I agree with the commenter who suggested that the woman probably
meant well. And, certainly, I offered the polite nod and “Yeah, sure,” comment
she was looking for. But hopefully the commenter and readers of the book will
start to understand that we need to go beyond thinking that meaning well but
not quite understanding that people with disabilities deserve the same respect
offered (or that should be offered) to everyone else isn’t enough.

Monday, September 23, 2013

This year’s M.S. Ride is fast approaching for many, including some of my friends from the Pennsylvania Center for Adapted Sports. I wanted to wish everyone the best of luck this coming weekend. I hope all of the cyclists have a safe and problem-free ride!

Originally, I had planned to include some of the photos from my experience in the 2010 ride in my book, but the extra expense of adding pictures in the self-publishing process caused me to have to leave them out. This week seems as good as any to re-post the pictures (plus a couple extra) from the original essay that now concludes I’m Not Here to Inspire You. I’m happy to include a video taken by a friend of our family, Michael Avella, just after Team PCAS crossed the finish line. (Michael also participated in the ride with another team, and actually helped my mom navigate her way through traffic–after she provided support for Reid and I at each rest stop throughout the day–just in time to see us finish.)

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

I’ve seen numerous Facebook posts
praising the Guinness commercial showing a bunch of guys playing wheelchair
basketball. Seemingly
sad music (my opinion) plays over an obviously competitive game, with at least
a couple guys tumbling to the floor. A monotone voice says, “Dedication.
Loyalty. Friendship. The choices we make reveal the true nature of our
character.” Toward the end of the ad all but one guy is revealed
to be able-bodied as the rest simply get out of the chairs they were using and
leave the gym with the other guy who continues to use the wheelchair. A couple of the
players are heard saying, “Gettin’ better at this,” and “Next week, buddy.”
The commercial ends with them all sharing a beer together at a bar.

Ok, nice advertisement. In fact, I
would put it in the close-to-great category. I’m not sure it comes anywhere
near the level of having people “utterly
captivated” that the Huffington Postplaced on it, but
no doubt many people do buy into their suggestion that it offers “some serious
heartstring-pulling at the end.”

I liked the ad the first time I saw
it, and thought it offered a positive message. A bunch of friends find a way to
compete with a member of their group who happens to have a disability. The
music was a bit dramatic, and I winced just a little at the “buddy” reference,
but I fully admit that response may be nitpicking. I have a friend who uses
“buddy” all the time with all of his friends, not just me, and, obviously, so
do many people. I’ve probably just had a few too many people I just met want to
be overly friendly and call me “buddy.”

That said, the response to the ad
puzzles me a bit. I’ve seen at least two women, both involved in competitive
adaptive sports, post the commercial. Neither gushed, but they were certainly
positive about the advertisement. I’m not sure what qualifies as a good showing
on Twitter, but the ad seems to have gotten plenty of very positive feedback on
the social media site.

I’m just not totally sure why. I mean,
I like the ad, and I think it’s a step in the right direction as far as
depicting disability on television (or anywhere else). I’m just surprised to
see people going to the point of wanting to praise it on social media.

Of course, that’s not exactly a high
standard. We’ve all seen people post the fact that they’re bored, eating a
sandwich, and God knows what else. Unfortunately, we all know what else because they post it for all the world to see.

But most commercials don’t get posted
by individuals on Twitter or Facebook. Perhaps that’s because most of them are
unbelievably stupid. If I saw one more car commercial pretending to be a summer
movie I was going to swear off TV forever. (OK, not really, but I was seriously
considering not watching anything that I hadn’t DVR’d.) And someday someone
will have to explain to me why it’s a good idea to depict people as completely
stupid until they find some 50 dollar product that’s going to make life so much
better. I always wonder if viewers are supposed to watch these ads and think,
“Yep, I’m that dumb, I should get that!” Suggesting your potential customers
are idiots wouldn’t seem like a good marketing technique.

Certainly, the Guinness commercial is
a much smoother display of attempting to attract customers. The beer producer
seems to want to tie their product to these guys who find a way to include
their friend. There’s a sense of the noble in what they’re doing, according to
the commercial.

And that’s where I wince just a little
more. Inclusion is obviously a good thing in this context, and, sadly, it’s
still far from the norm. But, noble? In fact, anyone paying too much attention
to the ad would realize it’s not all that realistic. Unless these guys all work
at a rehab, or at least one of them does, the odds are they don’t have easy
access to a bunch of wheelchairs made for playing sports. They’re certainly not
just getting up and leaving them behind until the next game. Again, that last
point might be a nitpick, but when you have lived with the abundance of
obstacles to actually participating in sports in the way this ad illustrates, you
tend to notice such things.

Finally, I had one other thought the
first time I watched this commercial. How come there’s only one guy with a
disability in the game? In my experience it may actually be the most realistic
part of the commercial that I’m over analyzing. It would be damn difficult for
me to get together with just one other person with a disability that was
similar to mine for a pick-up game of basketball. There are too many logistics involved
to get into here. But clearly Guinness overlooked other potential obstacles to
the game they depicted, so it shouldn’t have been too hard to show at least one
other guy with an actual disability. A cynic might wonder if the lack of even
one other guy with a disability suggests that people with disabilities have no
interest in competing with each other; they might question whether the message
is that it’s better to be participating with able-bodied players.

I’m really not trying to be a cynic
here. This is just a blog post. It’s little more than me thinking aloud. Having
recently self-published a book, my putting it in writing on a blog now seems
far less substantial knowing that, unlike a book, it can be wiped away with a
couple keystrokes. Not that I plan on hitting “delete” any time soon.

Overall, it’s a very good ad. It is a step in the right direction. But if
it’s popularity really is based on pulling on the heartstrings
and people essentially saying, “Aw, they let the disabled guy play,” it may not
be as big of a step as many people seem to think.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Many thanks to Joe Milewski (and Lucille) for being the first to join our tour! We’ve already reached our second state! Joe shared these great shots at the University of Delaware on Facebook, saying, I’m Not Here to Inspire You“is a must read ... available on-line in paperback and on Kindle. Join the ‘The #INHTIYBook Tour’ (please click SHARE). Let’s get Rob On The Ellen Show #getRobJQonEllen.

Thursday, September 5, 2013

I celebrated the publication of I’m Not Here to Inspire You with my friend and editor of the book, John Ziff, at our favorite lunch spot – Slack’s Hoagie Shack on Baltimore Pike. We decided it was the perfect spot to kickoff “The #INHTIY Book Tour.”

The #INHTIY Book Tour begins at
Slack's Hoagie Shack on Baltimore Pike.

John Ziff and I on the first stop or The #INHTIY Book Tour.

I need you to help to make the tour a success. Let’s get the word out about I’m Not Here to Inspire You across the Philadelphia area and across the country. If you enjoyed the book, join the tour by taking a picture of the book at a famous spot or just your favorite location. Be creative and don’t forget to let us know where the picture was taken along with any thoughts you’d like to add. Tag me on Facebook or mention me on Twitter to join the tour. You can also e-mail it to me with your details and I’ll post it.

Let’s bring “The #INHTIY Book Tour” coast to coast and to all 50 states! My ultimate goal is to make the final stop in California . . . on The Ellen DeGeneres Show!#getRobJQonEllen

I’m hoping to get the tour to the Art Museum and some surrounding areas soon, but don’t worry about duplicates. I want your pictures by the Rocky statue, Boat House Row, Citizens Bank Park, the Link, and wherever you want. Going to the Jersey Shore for a late summer dip in the ocean? I’d love a shot by the water! Like I said, be creative, have some fun, and keep it (relatively) clean.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

I’ve been trying to combine all of my
social networking outlets by basically posting every tweet on Facebook and the
blog. I will continue posting “important” tweets (if there is such a thing) here
on the blog and Facebook, but some things just seem to work in the Twitter
world that might not come off so well on the other outlets. So, I’ve posted a
Twitter gadget in the sidebar that will display all of my tweeting brilliance
for those who aren’t on that site. I actually tried this previously on my
sports blog, and the gadget simply stopped working.

So, we’ll see how it goes. For now,
readers can check out my #getonellen or #getRobJQonEllen
campaign and other tweets right here on the blog. Feedback is always welcomed.

Monday, August 19, 2013

I was honored to be asked to sign a book that I had written for the first time in my life on Saturday. John Siemiarowski, who took the awesome picture that is now the cover image of I’m Not Here to Inspire You, was the first person I signed for. I’ll have to get better at this marketing thing—one of us probably should have been holding up the book! After signing several copies of the book for people at the Pennsylvania Center for Adapted Sports cycling program, one thing became abundantly clear—each signature will truly be unique. This was especially true when signing after riding a difficult 24.5 miles. (Playing power wheelchair hockey was a lot of fun this season, but it doesn’t help the cardiovascular fitness!) I think I may have even forgotten the “J” in “Rob J. Quinn” on John’s copy! Thanks to Chuck Aronson for taking this great picture.

Monday, August 12, 2013

Marketing genius that I am, I’ve
decided to troll Twitter for “re-tweets” from celebrities this week. If you’re
unfamiliar with the world of Twitter, well, let me first congratulate you. And
you should know that a re-tweet—as I type, it dawns on me that this is
abundantly obvious—is when someone shares your tweet with their followers. The idea,
of course, is that I could get the word out about my book to the millions of people
“following” a celebrity if just one of them actually re-tweets my message.

So, I just tweeted the following to
the queen of daytime TV, Ellen DeGeneres:

Nothing like starting at the top,
eh? Actually, I started with Ellen because my goal is to get on her upcoming 11th
season. I’ll have more on that campaign soon.

I have four more celebs in mind for
Re-Tweet Week. (I figure after that it would get fairly annoying for my
followers—all 76 of them!) Check this post throughout the week for updates on
how it’s going and to find out who else I beg for re-tweets. If I can find them
on Facebook, I’ll also ask each celebrity for a “share.”

Of course, your “re-tweets” and “shares”
are very much appreciated! Or if you read the book, feel free to use the
hashtag #INHTIY to share your thoughts. Sales are just
starting to trickle in, so hopefully the hashtag will start getting some use
soon. See the links in the menu at the top of the page to follow me on Twitter
or Facebook, and help spread the word about I’m
Not Here to Inspire You.

Suggestions for which celebrity to
ask for a re-tweet are also welcomed!

Tuesday Update:
I started with the queen of daytime TV yesterday, so I thought it only appropriate to continue Re-tweet Week with the original queen, Oprah Winfrey.

On Facebook, I included the
subtitle “Essays on disability from a regular guy living with cerebral palsy.”
I can’t believe how many times I’ve forgotten the word living in various messages about the book. I added it to the subtitle
at the last minute and have the original version stuck in my brain. Sorry . . . almost every
e-mail recipient so far!

I also took the advice of a
Facebook friend and e-mailed Oprah (unbelievably, complete with the above
error). And I continued my #getonellen campaign by e-mailing
her through the show’s website. They’re a bit stingy with the size of the
e-mail that you can write, but I tried to make it work. Plus, I discovered the
error in the subtitle in some of my prepared materials, so re-working the
e-mail was very worthwhile!

Thursday
update:

A buddy
of mine “shared” the book on Facebook . . . and iUniverse shared the book via his link! I’m countin’ it as the first
big success of Re-tweet Week! Yeah, yeah, I know it’s their book too, but it’s
Thursday of Re-tweet Week so I’m going with it. Josh Blue also “favorited”
yesterday’s tweet, so . . . ok. It’s something.

I debated
tweeting several other people simply because of the number of followers that
they have, but I thought a tweet to another “CP Brother” rounded out this exercise
nicely.

So far, still
no actual celeb re-tweets, but friends on Facebook have been awesome with
“shares.” Many thanks to all for the assistance in spreading the word! I even
had my latest tweet to Ellen DeGeneres “favorited” by a random person on
Twitter. I also learned #getonellen
isn’t exactly a unique hashtag, which I should have realized.

If nothing else, I hope I gave
people a few laughs. I’ll be doing some more of this a little more exclusively on
Twitter because I think it plays a little better on that format, but I’ll keep
readers updated on Facebook and the blog. My #getonellen—maybe
#getRobJQonEllen—will
continue in the same manner.

Of course, I’ll be rolling out new
ideas to promote the book in the coming weeks and months, and ideas are more
than welcome. Thanks again for the Facebook “shares!”

I am Rob J. Quinn, the author of The Birth of Super Crip and I’m Not Here to Inspire You: Essays on disability from a regular guy living with cerebral palsy. I started as a freelance writer at the Philadelphia Inquirer Sports section, and wrote several articles on the disability community in the local section of the paper. I moved on to eventually work full-time for a leading children’s book publisher, and wrote a title for the publisher on a freelance basis. I also spent two years working for a non-profit, which worked to assist people with disabilities purchase the assistive technology they need to live more independently. I’ve had several articles, most appearing on my blog first, published on the Huffington Post. In the summer of 2016, I started blogging again on a regular basis.